


All The Walls Dissolve Away

by Brenda



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:25:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/pseuds/Brenda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He follows the voice on instinct.  He knows that voice better than his own, knows it deep in the darkest crevasses of himself, in the space where nothing else exists.  He would follow that voice into Hell itself.  Perhaps he is already there.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Walls Dissolve Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lace_fingertips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lace_fingertips/gifts).



> A bonus gift for Lacefingertips, in honor of your first Yuletide. :)

They say history is a living thing. They say history is ever present and history is always changing. They say history is written by the victors, that it's a testament to those who have won, to those who have conquered. 

They never mention that history is always written in blood. They never mention that the stain of it will never wash away, that the red flows, a deep river stretching as far back and as far forward as the eye can see.

***

_Can you hear me? Follow my voice, okay, can you do that? Can you do that for me? Please...I need you to tell me you can hear me. I need you with me..._

(Anything...he would do anything. But every time he opens his mouth, he can't make a sound.)

***

It's always the same, every time, a repetition without end. He is falling. He is lost. He is alone. 

And then the man appears. With hair as bright as the sun and skin as burnished as bronze and eyes the color of emerald-gold. The man is a beacon in the dark and as vital as the air in his lungs and as constant as the steady beat of his heart. The man is the moon in the sky controlling the tides and the ground beneath his feet keeping him steady and the wind at his back urging him forward. 

There is nothing he will not do for this man, his gravitational center, his entire universe writ large in human form.

***  
_Hey, hey, c'mon, stay with me. Stay with me, alright, you can't go just yet, I'm not done with you. Just hang on..._

(He follows the voice on instinct. He knows that voice better than his own, knows it deep in the darkest crevasses of himself, in the space where nothing else exists. He would follow that voice into Hell itself. Perhaps he is already there.)

***

There is a war. There is always a war. He's not sure either him or the man would exist without one. The war and the fight are all they have, all they ever will be. The war and the fight are ceaseless, eternal, and irrefutable. The war consumes him, a flame burning too hot to ever go out, a fight against an opponent who will never tire and who will never surrender. 

It's getting harder and harder each time to remember why he ever thought he could escape his fate.

***

_Don't you dare give up on me, don't you dare. I won't let you...fight for me, okay, can you do that?_

(He is so tired of fighting. But saying no to that plea has never been an option. Not in this life or the next.)

***

Sometimes, there is singing. If he goes very still and listens very hard, sometimes he can hear it. A voice as clear as a bell, as bright as springtime. He can never make out the words or the tone. Only the low lilt beckoning him to come out of the shadows and into the light. The song is safety and refuge and shelter. The song is innocence and comfort and life. 

The words have never mattered, only that the man is the one who is singing.

***

_I'm gonna get you out of this, alright, I just need you to stay with me. Don't you dare leave me..._

(He would never leave. He wouldn't know how. But he can't speak past the gurgling in his throat.)

***

There are hands on him – long-fingered, delicate, the hands of an artist or musician or poet. Hands that seem out of place in this desolate, despairing land of death and destruction and the end of all things. Hands such as these do not belong on flesh marred by war and drenched in blood. Hands such as these have been fashioned to create music or hold a paintbrush, to create art and give meaning to life. 

Instead, they wield weapons with razor-sharp skill, their artistry perverted, their promise plunged in filth and decay. Instead of creation, they bring only destruction, only gore and death.

But on him, these hands have never been anything other than gentle. It's the gentleness that always breaks him.

***

_Come back to me, please, come on. I know it's selfish to ask, but you gotta do it for me, okay. Can you do that? Can you hold on for me..._

(He wants to try, he really does. But how can he obey when the pressure on his chest is a weight dragging him under again?)

***

Even in fitful sleep and terrible dreams that never seem to end, he is jealous and possessive, his mind conjuring no one else except the man. The man is always there, as glittering as sunlight, as incandescent as the stars. There can be no other for him, not as long as he can imagine eyes as verdantly green as springtime, as long as he can be near a lithe body that seems fashioned for him alone.

The man is the only constant in a world filled with terror and nightmares beyond measure, a beacon even in the blackest of nights. 

***

_I'm right here with you, I promise, just stay with me. Can you hold on just a little bit longer for me..._

(The air in his lungs feels like ash, choking him where he lies, but still he tries. He would try for eternity if asked.)

***

The images come in flashes, flickering too fast and too bright behind his eyelids. There is a river, bright and cool. There is a beach of white sand, too hot under his bare feet. There are forests that grow evergreen surrounding him. There is a cave of glittering light. There is a bed made of furs and a high room with a soft breeze that tastes of the sea. 

And the man is everywhere he looks – in the babbling brook flowing over smooth stones, in the white foam of the waves drawn to the shore, in the pelt that feels like silk, in laughter echoing in the dark. And always, always, his name whispered like a prayer falling from the man's lips. 

His name, ordinary and base, made divine.

***

"Hey, there you are." Bright long-lashed eyes, concerned and relieved, swim into view. "How you doing?"

Hair like a golden halo, gold-flecked green eyes that shine like the brightest jewels, a face of angular and indescribable beauty, matched only by the beauty of his form. The man, come to life before his very eyes.

"You're here," he whispers, throat dry, eyes filling with tears. He is afraid to blink. To move. To give voice to the shimmering, desperate hope rising within him.

Cool fingers, meant for creating art (never death), brush his hair back from his forehead. The man's voice is as soft as a promise and just as binding. "Yeah, of course I'm here. Where else would I be?"

"I thought I dreamed you." Even now, he can scarcely believe this is real. He'd drifted in silence and solitude for so long, so many ages have passed by...

Then those cool fingers wrap around his own, and a soft kiss is placed to his brow. "If this is a dream, at least we're together."

Together. The word rings of the deepest truth. The word encompasses everything that ever was, that will ever be. The word is a secret and a promise, and when that soft kiss moves from his brow to his lips, he no longer cares if what he's feeling is real.

The man is with him. It's real enough.

***


End file.
